Electricity and Magnetism

An amazing book that treats the subject matter in an intuitive way, always providing graphic illustrations. It Is a lower-division EM book and that is the only drawback, according to me. It is also very helpful for learning Electromagnetism at a higher level in cases where the reader needs some intuition on the basics and for some visualization of the various electromagnetic phenomena. Moreover, Dr. Morin has took an already great book and made it even better by adding many more problems (with a huge amount of them also having solutions), but even these problems, not matter how difficult they get (and they can get really difficult at some points), they are still not very mathematically sophisticated (not even at the level of Griffiths' on most occasions). This is an excellent treatment of Electromagnetism and it might possibly be the best introduction to Electromagnetism as a level just one step lower than that of Griffiths'. But, as building intuition goes, this even beats Griffiths' textbook, which says a lot!

A very good and informative book that takes a well structured approach to the subject matter. A very useful addition to any supplied course material for physics students.

If like me you have been left wondering actually what explains a magnetic field (Special Relativity) rather that what describes it (Biot and Savart law) then this book is for you. I just wish I had known of its existence when I studied for a degree in Theoretical Physics back in the '80s. The standard way of approaching this subject at least back then was by introducing the Lorentz force and ultimately deriving and applying the Biot and Savart law for magnetic field generation from integrating current elements. This explains nothing of how the magnetic field is generated by the moving charges that constitute the current. The peculiar trajectory followed by a charged particle in the vicinity of an electric current left me wondering what property of space could possibly produce this result - a charge particle moving parallel to a current carrying wire moves towards or away from the wire and a charge particle moving straight at or away from the wire flies of along the direction of the wire! Space seemed to be behaving like a cork screw channeling the particle in a most peculiar way. The Lorentz force essentially defines the magnetic field that must exist for this behavior to be predicted but does nothing to explain how the moving charge brings the field about. In comes Purcell. Special relativity provides the necessary skewing of space (length contraction) that results in the charge density of the positive and negative charges that constitute the current becoming unequal in the particles rest frame as they are travelling in opposite directions and have different relative velocities to the particle. The wire appears charged in the particles frame! The particle experiences nothing but an electric force that is not apparent in the lab framel! In the lab frame its necessary to invent the magnetic field to describe the observed behavior as the wire remains neutral. Simples! If I had had this insight back in the day I would have paid more attention to the rest of the course rather than mulling over this sort of question for the next 20 years! From this approach Purcell derives Maxwell's equations and describes electric and magnetic phenomena in matter. On the way, many confusions arriving from the classical approach are resolved via similar deep insights. A beautifully written book. Thank God for Purcell. I can now die happy!

No complaints. 4 stars rather than 5 because I haven't read enough of the book to definitely give 5 stars. Everything according to plan, came quickly, no problems. Seems like a great book though. I loved the section on how magnetism is electricity + relativity and am happy to have bought it for that alone. Also the hardcover is nice.

Sure, electrodynamics is a huge and very high-tech field and this book probably isn't going to get you a PhD but this is hardly a beginner's book. You are going to need some serious math and physics to actually absorb the material. It's the kind of book where super-important concepts are given in one line... As opposed to telling you why this is so critical to understanding the next 600 pages and throwing you a bone because you aren't a student with no job, who has 6 hours of math a week. The style of this book has its merit for specialists but if you are some dude who doesn't know anything specific about electrodynamics and you figure you want to learn "what electrons do?" in a serious way - this book is way off for you!

It's really heavy, and you have to be an engineer to go with it. The maths and theory are for advanced users

Supplement this with griffiths and say, tippler, giancoli or halliday and you're in excellent hands!! The explanations are fantastic, insights are incredible, so well written, illustrations are amazing...just get a copy if you're interested in the subject. Fast delivery, perfect condition.

Really good undergraduate level introduction to Electromagnetism. Been wanting to get a copy for a while and it doesn't disappoint. I have a maths background so not phased by the vector calculus, but that too is covered carefully for newcomers. The paper is a bit thin, but the print quality is quite good nonetheless. Recommended.

I'm so glad this text was re-written using SI units. Wonderful book.

Questa è un'introduzione classica all'elettromagnetismo originariamente scritta da un premio Nobel per la fisica come secondo volume del Corso di Fisica di Berkeley (per il quale Zanichelli pubblica in lingua italiana i cinque volumi nella prima edizione). La terza edizione, uscita dopo la morte dell'autore (Purcell) è stata adattata senza tradirne lo spirito e i contenuti convertendo le unità in quelle del SI - addio al sistema gaussiano come forma prediletta - ed ampliando la parte di problemi e relative soluzioni. Si tratta di un testo a sè stante, con una vita propria indipendente da quella degli altri quattro volumi del corso di fisica di Berkeley (volumi che varrebbe comunque la pena di leggere). L'edizione appena uscita è rilegata (copertina rigida) e ottimamente realizzata. E' stato conservato lo spazio laterale su ogni pagina, comodo per le annotazioni, che caratterizzava le precedenti edizioni. Il riferimento alle equazioni nel sistema gaussiano è tuttora presente come compendio a quelle date nelle unità del sistema internazionale (mks razionalizzato), e non rappresenta più una distrazione per chi preferisce un testo SI. Tutt'altro, in questa forma rappresenta un ausilio per familiarizzare con il sistema cgs e i vantaggi che offre in certe circostanze. La mole di problemi risolti aggiunta è impressionante: un quarto del testo (circa 200 pagine) è dedicato alle soluzioni svolte nel dettaglio. Nel complesso il Purcell si conferma come uno dei migliori testi introduttivi all'elettromagnetismo, ora senza la 'scomodità' del sistema gaussiano e con il bonus di un eserciziario integrato. E' un ottimo punto di partenza per avvicinarsi all'elettromagnetismo seguendone l'evoluzione pseudostorica e prediligendo l'interpretazione fisica dei fenomeni, qualità condivisa con il resto dei volumi del Corso di Fisica di Berkeley. A differenza di altri testi introduttivi all'elettromagnetismo, però, il Purcell non adotta un approccio fenomenologico per il magnetismo, che viene introdotto direttamente come conseguenza delle trasformazioni relativistiche del campo elettrico. Per poter comprendere appieno il testo è pertanto necessario avere un'infarinatura di relatività ristretta. L'ideale sarebbe accompagnare questo testo a una trattazione top-down che parta dalle equazioni di Maxwell e deduca le varie leggi di elettrostatica, magnetostatica, induzione ecc come casi speciali, per poter consolidare le conoscenze in un contesto definitivo (un ottimo riferimento per questo è il conciso testo di Dugdale, "Essentials of Electromagnetism") e a un testo più tecnico che prediliga le coniugazioni pratiche dell'elettromagnetismo (come è ad esempio il Nayfeh Brussel, "Electricity and Magnetism", del quale sarebbe attesa la seconda edizione, mentre Dover ristamplerà la prima a basso costo nel marzo 2015). Digeriti questi, si può passare a testi più 'pesanti' come la seconda edizione del Panofski Phillips "Classical Electricity and Magnetism" (di cui esiste un'economica edizione Dover) o il famigerato e rispettato Jackson.

This hard bound tome seems to have been created to last for centuries. Paper quality and illustrations are top notch. The way this author tackles these topics should be a blueprint for others, which often mangle and entangle instead of clearly exposing them. Most noteworthy are the deep and exhausting solutions to the exercises, which take up a sizeable part of this book.

The text itself is very nice. Perfect for what I was looking for to self study in and supplement Griffiths. The true benefit from this text in my opinion is the notation used and the abundance of questions. It also arrived the day after I bought it so I feel pretty lucky!

Es la tercera edición de un libro que lleva 40 años en las aulas universitarias. Es decir que es un libro de texto adoptado por numerosos profesores dada su calidad excepcional. La teoría está muy bien desarrollada y está adaptada para un curso intermedio de electromagnetismo (segundo de carrera universitaria en ciencias e ingenierías). Contiene una gran cantidad de ejercicios con algunos resueltos. Destaca el capítulo sobre el campo de cargas móviles que explica la relación entre el electromagnetismo y la teoría de la relatividad. Tiene un tratamiento muy interesante.